The Hidden Pathways
by floralblacklips
Summary: Irene had never been a really been a human, in other words. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, it had become a difficult task to enable her to think properly, to live properly. However, after twelves years of mourning, she comes across the trilogy and entered the world of Middle Earth; an experience that changed her life forever.


She was a girl who could see the world in a brand new way, the clouds would be filled with gold, the lands would spill with endless greenery and the smell of peppermint and mushrooms would wave in the hills to the soils. Every time she looked into a person's eyes, all she could see was the same endless, perfect paradise; day by day that it almost seemed perfectly normal to her. She'd feel the jagged textures of the tree trunks by holding onto the car handle, she would be consumed with the vividness that floats in her atmosphere when, as a matter of fact, the opposite would turned out to be her actual reality. The actual reality now barely exists since her own world had slowly started to consume her; her parents tried to revive her back into Earth, however, instead, she falls into deep sleep and forgot the faces around her. What was a meant to be a gift to see the world as she would was now a curse, for she could not live normally like she was meant to. The girl then finally tried to forge herself out of reality completely if it was the last thing she could do, and then, the moment she tells herself that reality does not exist; a golden shimmer glitters in her eye. She turns her head and realises that the book her sister were reading previously had been closed now. In the depths of pure astonishment, she slowly approaches the book whilst her heart and mind clouded with wonder - no such peace and wonder had even filled her this much in her life before. Taking a deep breath, she picks up the book, as if it was even possible for her body to cooperate, and then, like thin fragile glass, she walks up to the attic where she could completely escape from the unfamiliar world she was born in.

The book had captured my attention in a way almost nobody could, she thought to herself, calmly opening the book almost felt like herself discovering a hidden treasure. In her eye, she could see beams of yellow light slightly peering between the brown, brittle holes in some of the pages as she observed the entire book briefly. It must've been very old, she spoke in her mind.

She could not read the title very well, however, somehow, when she flipped back onto the first page of the enchant book, all the words that she never learnt how to read somehow moved accordingly back to their places. All those jumbles of alphabets and odd signs suddenly appeared to look as normally as a normal eye could detect. A gasp leaves her lips, tears slightly welling up in her eyes as she placed her hands against the cool textures of the book, thanking it slightly to remind her that she still had the ability to think. Then, taking a deep breath once more, she slowly started reading the words on the book, unaware that the deeper the pages that she'd read, the shorter time would flow... the faster her mind would consume her, to fall into the depths of fantasy.

Middle Earth.

Irene was a patient, diagnosed with severe schizophrenia. Her condition had been untreatable and she was never really as attached to the world as her parents or her siblings' have, and that was what made the way she thinks so imaginably limitless. Even from young, she never really learnt how to communicate properly, her body had caused her pain because she could not help it. Unable to control herself, she would lock herself up in the attic all day, shutting the world away from her thinking that she'd only be a hazard to everyone else. Her parents had been very concerned, but did not force Irene into anything. Loving her, they respected her decisions and gave her just as much love as they have given to their other children, and that was mostly how Irene spent her life as a teenager. Locked up in the attic, Irene tried to control her body for years, eventually gained herself a computer where she tried her best to type in how she felt due to the fact that she was unable to speak. It was best when Irene's eye-sight was slightly clearer and when she was able to recognize some of the words that her sisters had used by their own tongues. It was quite rarely that she could read fluently, though. It would often take a long time for her to calm herself down, however, when successful, Irene would pleasurably read as many books as she could online, knowing that if her own body deprived her of exploring the world and growing up normally, she'd instead use the rest of her potential to explore other worlds, whether it were fairy tales or non-fiction novels that she would come across, she knew that it shouldn't really matter. The world is limitless to her. There was no such thing as a fiction if it were shaped by such a magnificent human mind.

But her body was not the only thing in her way to try to live it up to the fullest, but her mind had been constantly gnawing at her for quite a while now. Extremely vivid images would sometimes fill in her surroundings, scaring her and giving her that odd feeling in her own stomach, and she hated that the most. Sometimes being a little too miserable, Irene would force herself to go to bed, trying her best to ignore the awful and emotionally-scarring images, despite the fact that it would constantly happen on almost a daily basis. Irene would also sometimes feel incredibly lost at her own expense, a bit saddened and a little upset that she had to live herself this way: running away from the world she was destined to explore. It would sometimes go to the extend of drenching her pillows with tears, wishing all the time that she could finally see normally like how her sisters could, play catching with them, throw water balloons at them and basically live a normal life. But she could not.

She knew there was a reason for her to feel so ridiculously separated from the world, and she was not going to waste her time wondering how come she had so been different from the rest.

But that had been her world for twelve years. It had already been too long since she smelt of the daisies and roses that waved in the garden; the last time she saw the sunlight proudly beaming down at her was during her seventh birthday. It had been too long, she thought, over and over again, peeking out of the little dome-shaped window that only the attic had to provide for her source of life. She could barely see anything except for the trees and pathways that would have had gotten her to school if she was not diagnosed with this discomposing disorder. School, she thought. I wonder what school must've been like.

It was now her nineteenth birthday. As if almost on cue, her parents and her lovely matured sisters crept up the attic, wide, almost sympathetic-like smiles written across their slightly wrinkled faces. It had been a while since she saw her family looking as complete as ever, a bit upset that she had not been really able to grow up with them like her sister could. But she ignored it. She had to stop thinking. Mother then gathered the big family of 6 again, united one more whilst surrounding the simple, strawberry-flavored cake. Irene's sisters were gigging to one another, deep in conversation and Irene couldn't help but feel isolated one again, despite the fact that her family had already been here. It then reminded her of the reason why she almost permanently locked herself away from the world, and although it gave her a bit of a nostalgically upsetting feeling, she tried her best to shrug it away and once again forced her body to cooperate as she bent down to blow her birthday cake. Pity, she thought. Even a fly could blow itself a birthday cake better than that.

Although she had missed the presence of her family, she could not help but only wait for them to leave her attic, often finding it a little unnerving and saddening that these faces were starting to look less and less familiar to her. She didn't want to be reminded of the people that she had to put burden on just by her own existence. She did not want to upset or anger herself, or anyone, for that matter.

Soon enough, they had all left, each giving Irene a soft kiss on her forehead, making her feel a little uncomfortable, although she had missed the affection of her family; to remind her that people still do care. Once they left, Irene takes a deep breath and then sits at the same corner she'd been sitting on for twelve years, forever yearning to finally find peace in the world as she looked out of the window, sighing deeply into the faraway lands that she had always wished to call her own.

It then caught her. That book. She could not read the title but somehow, it gave her almost complete authority of herself; her mind, her soul and her body. Sensing this kind of control felt a little odd to her since she had always tried her best to make herself seem normal. It never felt so easy for Irene to just easily open a book and scan it normally like a normal girl could.

"_When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton._" Irene spoke in her mind, reading the very first since of the book that almost felt as if her soul was finally being fed, the hunger of her body then denatured. Irene continued reading sentence by sentence, falling deeper into the story as it reached into her, giving her that odd, unreachable sense of hope, sense of belonging and a sense of control. She could no longer tell how far she had been reading, but she could not care less. The words in the book dug deeper and deeper into her head, the picture of Middle Earth, the world in that story, slowly beginning to look extremely vivid in her mind. She could no longer sense that same dreadful feeling of being a nobody, of being a complete psycho. She felt motivated and her hands and feet felt familiar again, and they never even felt so familiar to her before.

And that was when she knew, she had been lost. Completely; because, the moment she takes a deep breath and finished somewhere along the three books stacked neatly at the corner of the wall, she looks up and realizes that she's no longer in that same, dusty old attic of hers that forever reminded her of isolation. Everything looked absolutely different. Endless, vibrant rows of greenery filled her sight, flowers blooming out of the blue, beautiful trees reaching out into the sky and the Sun.. the Sun that she longed to see again. It had never looked as beautiful the last time she saw it.

"Welcome to the Shire, my lady," an odd, cheerful voice echoes in her head, snapping herself back into odd, confusing reality, "what must your name be?"


End file.
